Luca M.

Journal entries imported from the previous iteration of wisrd.org

Luca M.

8/23/22– This is the first day at WISRD. I think I want to go down the engineering path and either incorporate brain waves or aerodynamics. I have always wanted to do something involving wind or flight, but I think I might want to do studies on brain waves. I think it would be very cool to harness them and use them to make something cool. Recently I have been thinking about fans and how I could invent a much more powerful version. I think doing this would be very cool for my project, but also for future inventions from other scientists.

8/30/22– I started researching the human brain, but I think I would rather actually make something. I might do something with aerodynamics instead or maybe make some kind of useful device. I was thinking about doing some kind of paper thing like the paperfuge invention.

1/10/23– I was going to print my model of a spider leg the other day. The printer got jammed so today I’m going to do more research and try to figure out how I’m going to make the expanding bag that the spider uses to actually extend its leg. I was telling my dad about it last night and he said I should use a water balloon. I hadn’t thought about this before and I might consider it. Before I was thinking of using a paper accordion-type thing and gluing that to the cavity I made in the leg.

1/27/23– I have been doing research on how spiders use their claws to stick to any surface. It uses the same function that a Vaan de Graff generator does. I finished my pitch for the article. It was about how creatures like lizards and insects use electricity in their bodies.

8/23/23- I am back this year and I’m super excited to start a new project from scratch. I have new classmates this year so hopefully I can do some collaboration. I’m thinking about doing some research on sound dampening and maybe finding a better way to do it.

8/28/23- My friend Viggo and I have started to make an ant farm. We used some polymer sheeting for the sides and we ordered the ants and the materials for their tank. I hope they realize that they are meant to start digging into the sand we are going to put into the tank or else I’m not sure how we will get them comfortable with their new home. My hypothesis is that they will start digging into the dirt and start a colony. After that, we will feed them fruit and give them leaves to see where they will bring them.

8/29/23- I want to compare which leaves the ants like the most and what food they prefer out of the fruits and vegetables we will feed them. My hypothesis is that they will like the sweetest foods like apples and bananas and not like the ones like lettuce and cucumbers. You always see ants around sugar and dropped candy so I think that they really like sugar.

1/9/24- It has been a long time since I updated my journal but I plan to keep it more updated this semester. Viggo and I have been making significant progress every day. The underground tank started to rot so we detached it and have been remodeling the whole tank for the past week. We are replacing all of the plastic mesh with acrylic because it can’t be chewed through. Overall the design is much neater and more accessible because of the hinged acrylic door on the top of the tank. We had to cut lots of air holes in the acrylic so that the ants would be able to breathe now that the whole tank is solid instead of a combination of mesh and wood.

1/23/24- Today I finished the remodeling of the lid of both the tanks, but I also had an idea of how to completely remodel the tank to make it more compact and neat. My idea is to just keep the secondary tank and make a barrier going around the inside walls of it so that the tunnels will be exposed just like they would have been with the original design. I might scrap this idea, but I think it’s much better than what we already have.

2/14/24- Today we finished implementing the new design and it already looks so much better. We are ordering the ants very soon so I can’t wait to see if this new design works like we thought it would. We also made a latch system on the top of the tank so it fully closes without leaving gaps for ants to potentially escape through.

4/30/24- Today I finally finished working on the camera after weeks of trial and error. I found a way to have an active camera to record the data from the tank and save it on the Raspberry Pi. This is great because it means that we can finally order the ants for the tank. The camera uses a web browser and then it is recorded on Vokoscreen which is a recording software.